An efficient amorphous ternary Ni-B-Ce catalyst for enhancing electrocatalytic oxidation performance of BH4−

The development and utilization of anode catalysts are key to the advancement of direct borohydride fuel cells (DBFC). In this paper, NiB and Ni-B-Ce compounds were synthesized by the chemical reduction method. The electrocatalytic oxidation properties of Ni-B-Ce compound toward BH₄⁻ were systematically investigated. The microstructures of NiB and Ni-B-Ce were characterized by inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectrometer (ICP-OES), X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscope (SEM), transmission electron microscope (TEM), and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The electrochemical oxidation of BH₄⁻ was evaluated on Ni-B/NF and Ni-B-Ce/NF electrodes via cyclic voltammetry (CV), electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), chronoamperometry (CA), chronopotentiometry (CP), and electrochemical active surface area (ECSA) measurements. The results showed that the catalytic activity and stability of Ni-B-Ce were better than those of NiB compound, and the Ce content affected the catalytic performance of Ni-B-Ce compound. The Ce_0.25 catalyst was more conducive to the BOR reaction. To conclude, NiB and Ni-B-Ce can be used as potential DBFC anode catalyst materials, and introducing rare earth element Ce improves the catalytic performance of NiB alloy.